The National Rally, but also La France insoumise, has long demanded that the State take over the management of highways and the revenue from their tolls, entrusted to the private sector for twenty years. But this renationalization would be very expensive, while it would be enough to wait for the concession contracts to end in a few years.
A week after the European elections and the dissolution of the National Assembly, the Paris Stock Exchange still has a hangover. Since the start of the week, the CAC 40 index has lost 6%, its worst weekly record in five years. Like the banks, the motorway concession companies Vinci and Eiffage were at the forefront, falling by 11.4% and 14.7% respectively in one week. In question: the “nationalization” highways to reduce toll rates by 15%, promised by Marine Le Pen in 2022 and which could again be carried by the National Rally. But also by LFI, which tabled a bill to this effect at the beginning of 2022. Except that to “nationalize”, the State would in reality have to pay nearly 50 billion euros.
Contrary to what the expression used by the leader of the RN suggests, it is not a question of dispossessing the private sector of the motorway network – the State has always owned it – but of breaking the contracts signed with the companies responsible for build, maintain and operate infrastructure.
This system of concessions, financed by tolls, was set up in 1955, with mixed economy companies, but was then entrusted to private companies from 2005. Vinci Autoroutes, the first French concessionaire, manages 4,443 km for a turnover of 6.32 billion euros in 2023, followed by Eiffage (2,465 km, 2.97 billion turnover) and the French subsidiary Sanef of the Spanish Abertis (1,807 km in the north and eastern France, 1.99 billion turnover). Only two sections remain managed by the public: the Mont-Blanc tunnel and the Fréjus tunnel.
At the time, Vinci Eiffage and Abertis had paid 22.5 billion to acquire these concessions, on the basis of profitability rates that have now been largely exceeded. “For Vinci and Eiffage, the expected profitability was reached ten years before the end of the contracts,” estimated centrist senator Vincent Delahaye, author of a report delivered in 2020 on the subject. He is not the only one in recent years to have crushed concession contracts. Already in 2013, the Court of Auditors warned of the imbalance between the two contracting parties to the detriment of the State and of tariff increases “contestable” tolls. In 2015, the State imposed a price freeze until 2022, to try to protect the purchasing power of the French, but since 2023, prices have increased again (+4.75% in 2023 and +3 % in 2024). In 2021, another report, same conclusions, “smothered” by the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, according to the chained Duck, which revealed the existence two years later of this study carried out by the General Inspectorate of Finance. Experts recommended a 60% reduction in toll rates or a levy of more than 63% on the gross surplus, according to the weekly… but not termination.
Because the State would have to pay enormous compensation to Vinci, Eiffage and Abertis – around 47.5 billion euros, according to an estimate from the French Association of Motorway Companies – which is largely explained by the resumption of debts of concession companies. The “nationalization” desired by Marine Le Pen and LFI, at least until 2022 (it appeared on the Nupes program, but is not mentioned in that of the New Popular Front), seems too costly, especially since the concession contracts will soon end (between 2031 and 2036 depending on the companies) which will allow the State to set new conditions without having to pay a cent.
